Vermillion
by Cerulean Pen
Summary: "Your spirit is sweet, so pull off your sheet, and give me a ghost of a smile." Typical Freddie, so naïve and mislead…come closer my friend, you shouldn't be afraid anymore. Blatant Seddie horror.


Vermillion

Summary: "Your spirit is sweet, so pull off your sheet, and give me a ghost of a smile." Typical Freddie, so naïve and mislead…come closer my friend, you shouldn't be afraid anymore. Blatant Seddie horror.

English Horror/Suspense Rated: T Chapters:1 Words: Sam P. & Freddie B.

_I saw a ghost on the stairs _

_And sheets on the tables and chairs_

_The silverware swam with the sharks in the sink_

_Even so, I don't know what to think._

The dazzling luminescence slithers through his Venetian blinds, grasping hold of his eyelids and tugging brutally; he squints at the cyan ceiling, his corneas cracked with augmented crimson veins. A cardinal perches on the rickety ledge of the fire escape, serenading the morning mellifluously, his chirping voice in gorgeous harmony with the blue jays and wrens crying above him.

Such a peaceful dawn. The vivid beams of solar radiance torpedo into his skull like jagged bullets, hooking onto his brain. He feels as a corpse risen from its casket (and looks, but _hush, he mustn't know.) _Rapid, frenetic knockings at his bedroom door. He buries himself beneath heaps of blanket, struggling in vain to cease this incessant noise. His mother doubtlessly has the nine and one dialed into the phone, finger poised over the one. "Freddie," Marissa pleas, delivering another achingly strident poundings, "Freddie, get up."

To lug himself out of bed and face yet another day? Freddie yanks another quilt over his head, numbly disregarding her. She bursts in, tugging the covers right off of his body, and the chill licks his bare torso, freezing his muscles over. "Fredward Benson, it's a school day!" Marissa's tone is far too shrill to be remotely admonishing, tossing a cerulean Penny-Tee (reading of "Swollen Hats") and a rumpled pair of jeans at him. "I'll see you in five minutes for a nice breakfast of liquid oatmeal and fruit sauce!"

No defending himself against his half-demented mother. Freddie dresses at a leisurely pace, finding himself glancing up or at the cardinal continuing to twitter. Funny how he rarely sees cardinals until now. He's suddenly enticed by the vermillion feathers, the concise wings, and he leans against the window, pressing fingers. The bird squawks spitefully, pecking the glass before taking flight, a red dot traveling above the gray.

"Freddie! You're fruit sauce is cold!"

:::::

He doesn't wait for Carly; Freddie strides out of Bushwell, and immediately glares at the sky, watching the rumbling gray sheets thicken overhead. A drizzle drums down like a second heartbeat, eventually drenching him to the bone. Why walk through the rain? Why go to school? Why even consider living when the pain is…gone?

Freddie turns on his heel, and walks, don't run, in the opposite direction, one foot in front of the other. Mustn't sprint. He may trip, skin his knee, tear his pants. So he's careful. The cardinal swoops audaciously up the street, taunting him mercilessly, until he falls in the path of a speeding bus of businessmen and high school students. Crimson feathers soak up the crimson blood.

_See, _Freddie thinks with a tight smile, _that's what happened when the cardinal crossed the road._

:::::

Freddie wanders in and out of shops, only to keep dry as the rain teems down. No one pays much attention to a tenth grader not in class. It isn't their predicament.

He comes across his favorite store, Crossed Wires. Amongst the display of laptops, Freddie finds a panel of used computers, their screens finger-printed like a policeman's file of criminals, the keyboards sticky from too many sandwiches whilst typing science essays. A certain, silver Pear laptop strikes his attention, pulling Freddie in close to observe the monitor. He inhales, forgets to exhale. A rather familiar pair of chocolaty eyes blink back at him.

Steps back. Olive skin, parted brown hair, those vacant eyes. "I didn't mean to," it quavers, a trail of scarlet trekking past his ear, "I didn't mean to." Freddie shakes his head lividly, and in a single motion, drops his backpack down the arc of his arm, smashing it into the computer. Electric fires, wires, glass. But no more constricted pupils. Over. Gone. Cardinal.

"Hey, kid, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

_No, no Freddie, _a vehement, intrepid voice growls in the back of his mind, _you won't let it slip away that easily. You still did it. You can't just smash your troubles away like _she _did. You're smart. Fix it._

So he runs. Freddie stays on the curb, away from where buses can flatten him, cars can eviscerate him, panting and soaked to his bloodstream, ice crystals resting in his cells. It's so glorious, this racing, his troubles evaporating into the breeze, because he's not guilty, he'snotguilty.

Stop sign. STOP. Oh yes, he surely does jerk to a halt, falling, chin-first, to the ground in the Devil's bow, as onlookers grimace, for the snow-white letters are now painted ruby. Asphalt, grit, drifting, guilt, not…forgiveness.

_Nothingness?_

_He slowly picks himself up off the ground, all throbbing joints, but his pain vanishes the instant he realizes that he's…nowhere. Void stretching on for miles, pigmented blinding white, quite a chilling sight to behold. _I'm in heaven, _is Freddie's first thought, surveying the open space with panicking eyes._

"Nope!"

_A mirror! Standing alone! Freddie tenderly creeps towards it, catching sight of his reflection: aside from the machete he's clutching between his teeth, he seems intact. Handsome, actually. The mirror wavers, fogs over, gives way to a face that paralyzes him, her cobalt eyes innocently shimmering. A fuzzy blonde halo, but ordinary clothes, no robe, no wings, her permanent smirk replaced by a gentle smile. _"Hey Freddie, remember me?"

"Y-yeah…" _he stutters frenetically, watching her giggle, a sound that shatters in the air when fashioned by a girl like Sam. It's possibly the worst possible question, but Freddie asks anyway, eyes cast towards the ground (or whatever he may be standing upon.) _"H-H-how have y-you…been?"

"HA!" _Her laugh is detached, twin daggers in his eardrums, and the image of the machete reappears, though he's not sure who's mouth it is clenched in. _"Oh, no, I'm just fine! It's so _wonderful_ here, I just can't believe it!" _Sam sounds hysterical, nearly manic, but her chipper grin never seems to fade. _"But you know Freddie, I've been thinking. In fact, there's not much to do here but think! It's wonderful that you live, breathing, feeling! Wouldn't you rather be dead, then cooped up in that awful reality?"

"No…" _He meant for it to come as a heroic yell, but his vocal cords are twisting themselves into knots, his throat convulsing as Sam chuckles uproariously. Where the hell is that machete coming from? Cold metal brushes his teeth. Sam's eyebrows arch, she giggles fluty. _

"Oh, come on Freddie…" _She seems to pout, her glossy lower lip extending to accommodate a juvenile expression, cerulean eyes wide like a puppy lost in the rain. _"Trading places will be fun. Being dead is terrific! Fantastic, even! You made a mistake, I'll forgive you, because once your dead, no more weight on your shoulders. So let's make a deal, shall we?" _She leans so far, he questions the bounds of the mirror._

_"NO!"_

_Ululating, Sam breaks through the reflective glass, the machete still cradled in her jaws. There's no running, or even time to think, as the jagged point catches him at the hairline, rivulets of cherry raining down his forehead. _"All your fault! Let me live!"

**Knife in drawer, on the floor**

**Recording light on, vermillion red**

**Preserve this memory, don't you still want to be my friend?**

**Misguided and naïve Freddie, come closer…**

_Freddie stumbles away from her, feet hitting a surface, but he's yet to understand how Sam's twisted Heaven functions. A razor-sharp edge clips his torso, then his abdomen, slicing like butter through those perfectly toned muscles he worked incessantly to attain. His viscera glop out, the prime image for a slasher film that he doesn't want to see._

"Wow Freddie, good job keeping fit! Your intestines look great, pale pink, just like they should be!" _The blonde snorts as she giggles, reaching in and grasping his entrails, wrapping them around his throat, hoping to suffocate him. It's utter agony that cannot be attempted with words as Freddie struggles, blotches of color spreading across his vision. They grow stronger, frosting his sight over, muddling into black, his voice weaker then a strand of gossamer._

_Finally black consumes him._

"AAH!"

Sitting up, huddled in bed, with the rain pouring down in God's weeping tears, streaking the window that a live cardinal pecked at mere hours ago. Freddie can hear his mother bawling to gruffly toned man, whom he guesses is a doctor; reaches to his forehead. Gauze bandages from the stop sign. _It's raining, it's pouring, Freddie is snoring. He went to bed and bumped his head, and didn't wake up 'till morning._

He isn't one hundred percent sure he's all right, after a horrifying nightmare that injects paranoia into his criss-crossing veins, visions of Sam still fresh in his memory. Freddie eases himself off the mattress, switching on the lights to the bathroom, keeping his distance from the mirror. His shirt has a faint splatter of burgundy on the shoulder, his bandages pushing his hair off his face. No Sam. Just him.

Freddie breaths a sigh of relief, and when he's about to climb back into bed to sleep off his ordeal, realization hits him like a bag of cement. He limps back into the bathroom, turns on the light, leans in closer, clutching the sink until his knuckles are bone-white. Wait a minute?

Since when were his eyes blue?


End file.
